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Jan believed she was ‘in love’. She accepted a proposal of marriage, and then sent money - ALL her money - to a professional scammer.
She courageously shares the details of her devastating experience, in order to help others to recognise such devious swindlers who prey on trusting souls.
Jan is one of the rare few survivors of a romance scam who has the courage to speak up, and she does - loudly, eloquently and frequently in her latest book Romance Scam Survivor: the whole sordid story!

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Category: Research

Are you a victim of a romance scam and a New Zealand resident? The University of Auckland is looking for you.

They are undertaking research on: Where to Turn for Support? The Impact of Online Romance Fraud on Relationships Between Victims and Kin. Researcher: Christopher C McCormick, Supervisor: Vivienne Elizabeth

Not enough is known about support for victims after scams have been perpetrated. Please sign up if you are a New Zealand resident or a family member of a NZ scam victim.

Yesterday I received an email from a person on my mailing list with a message saying they had found my photo in a scammers profile. Oh what joy! My picture on a scam site under the name of Elizabeth Edwin.

This notification led me on a voyage of discovery as I followed the mystery down a number of paths.

Firstly I contacted the site for female fake profiles – https://www.stop-scammers.com/ to let them know that the photo was of me. It was a photo taken of me by the Herald Sun in July 2015 that I also use on my Media Presence page. I received an automated email back, but it will be interesting to see what they say about this. Names of the real people behind the photos is not divulged on the site that I could see. This site has thousands of stolen photos and fake profiles with other supporting information about scammer activity. I only used the free service, which is a bit limited, but it looks like a comprehensive site. Continue reading A stolen photo mystery

Whenever I speak publicly about being scammed there is often either an innuendo or a direct attribution that because I have been lonely I am likely to be vulnerable to a scam. For ‘lonely’ translate to ‘faulty individual’. Thus the formula follows, in their minds: I am not lonely, therefore I am not ‘scam-able’. I reject the formula, but more on that later. Now there is research which has looked specifically at susceptibility to cybercrime. Low and behold “In total, 60% of the population surveyed presented as being in the higher risk categories for susceptibility to cybercrime.”[i] So, for a great many people, it could happen to them.

Undertaken by Lee Hadlinton and Sally Chivers, and published in Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice[i], this research looks at susceptibility to cybercrime levels through the lenses of information security awareness, trait impulsivity, and cross references these with age and employment factors. Continue reading Susceptible to scams? 66 percent are..

In the past years, since Rosie Beatty became Australian of the Year, there has been much emphasis on Domestic Violence and the toll this takes on many women, as well as programs to combat this. Regular readers of this blog will know that I see Romance Scams as a form of abuse, but one that in comparison gets very little support or acknowledgement, except when the increasingly disastrous financial figures are published. So how are these forms of abuse similar and different? Analysis has begun on this topic by Dr Cassandra Cross and her colleagues. Continue reading Is the psychological abuse in domestic violence similar in scams?

I recently gave a talk to a local PROBUS Club (for over 55s who are retired), about my experience of being scammed. I’m getting better at doing these talks, but still am taken aback by some of the questions. The one that most niggled this day was if I had been single for much of my life.

“Ah!” He said, when I replied positively to this. In his mind I knew he had now put me in the box of “lonely, therefore scam- able”. I wanted to scream, because I knew he was also making the leap to “I’m not lonely, therefore it won’t happen to me”. They all wanted to believe “it won’t happen to me”. All 90 of them listening to my talk on how I was scammed. It was similar to those other questions which implied that I was gullible or stupid to fall for a scam.Continue reading Does Lonely mean Ripe for a Scam

Cassandra Cross, The QUT cyber fraud and scam researcher, claims putting out warnings about all the different types and plots of scams does not effectively deliver warnings that help people avoid scams, especially romance scams. The focus needs to change so effective, consistent and repeatable warnings are given, and the ongoing losses are stopped. She has been in the news again winning awards for her article about this, as well as being quoted in the press, doing a TED talk, attending local and overseas conferences, and having her (co-authored) book published.

The latest report out from the ACCC called Targeting Scams 2017 came out on Monday 15 May with the 2016 figures. In the area of romance scams the figures ($25.4 million reported lost) have not changed much, up slightly from 2015, but still under the 2014 level. The report indicates some moves in the right direction, but much more effort in many directions is still needed.

Australians lose millions of dollars through romance scams and there is no evidence that police are doing anything. Here are the responses to my queries to the relevant agencies. Victims want justice, the police don’t seem to be taking any notice. This is not good enough!

My last blog questioning what the police are doing to investigate scams has generated some interesting responses. A promise for more information from a senior member of the Victorian police; a response from the ACCC to my query; and someone’s FOI request has given a standard response from the Australian Institute of Criminology (ACIC). Since July the ACIC has had responsibility for ACORN. Continue reading Police are not doing enough about scams!

When someone contacts me saying they have been scammed and what should they do one of my first suggestions to them is to report the scam to ACORN (Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network). I am an Ambassador for them, so that’s logical, right? But what does ACORN do?

I was recently contacted by someone in this situation, and her story, is, according to the research by Cassandra Cross mentioned in my last post, not that unusual. She communicated with me over a number of days, complaining that no-one in the various police forces would take her call, and that she was continually referred on to someone else, who then referred her on again. This included state police, federal police, and even Interpol, who could work on her behalf, but only if contacted by the relevant local agency (police). But they weren’t interested in even taking her details. Continue reading What are our police forces doing about romance scammers??

[How victim blaming applies to romance scams. The latest research from Dr. Cassandra Cross explains how scam victims are blamed, how they are impacted and the influence on the reporting of scams. Who you should not tell about your scam, from Dr Brené Brown.]

The term ‘victim blaming’ has come to the fore recently in relation to photos of schoolgirls being published online, and one school’s response to this. As with rape and other sexual assaults in the past, the victim (schoolgirls) were blamed for their actions, clothing, etc inciting their abuse. The same happens with victims of romance scams.

“Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially responsible for the harm that befell them“, according to Wikipedia. RationalWiki describes further: “Blaming the victim describes the attempt to escape responsibility by placing the blame for the crime or other abuse at the hands of the victim. Classically this is the rapist claiming his victim was “asking for it” by, for example, wearing a short skirt.”

The past years has seen an increasing understanding that rape victims are not to blame for their rape, no matter what they wear, and women walking through parks, or on their way home after a night out are not inciting their sexual assault simply by being out. The change in understand has been brought about by a concerted effort by women’s groups raising and successfully addressing the spectre of the sexual double standard involved. Continue reading Victim Blaming endemic in Romance Scams